


The Error Which Has Crept Into Our Life

by DragonBandit



Series: Sex Work AU [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Catholic Guilt, H/C bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Priests, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit
Summary: Kurt nurses a glass of wine in a bar that he has no business knowing about, waiting for a man that he has no business meeting with.





	The Error Which Has Crept Into Our Life

“Hello father,” Peter says, dropping into the seat next to Kurt. He’s dolled up today, and Kurt guiltily drinks in the sight of how the dark cloth of Peter's shirt hugs the angles of his body, how the neckline drops low enough to show off his collarbones. There’s a hickey blooming dark purple in the juncture of Peter’s pale throat. Peter takes the glass of wine that Kurt's been nursing over the evening, the dark liquid staining his lips when he takes a sip. 

“I’m not yet,” Kurt says, for what must be the hundredth time by now. “I haven’t taken any vows.”

“But you’d like it if I called you daddy, right,” Peter says with a smile over his stolen drink. He is loose limbed and careless, sprawling across the wooden chair. 

Kurt shakes his head, smiling, glad that his blue skin easily hides the heat rushing to his cheeks. “Aren’t I younger than you?”

“Age doesn’t have anything to do with it.” He gives Kurt another playful look, “Is this the part where I tell you that I’ve sinned?” 

Kurt looks around the seedy bar, lifting his eyebrows. “I do not think you could get further away from a confessional if you tried.” 

Peter hums, a light in his eyes that makes the bright blue that much more brighter. "So if you're not here to lecture me, or to hear my sins what are you here for?"

"Perhaps I just wanted to see a friend."

The smile grows wider, a little more wicked. "Did you come here to see a friend or to  _ see a friend?" _

"Ah," Kurt says, and he has to avert his eyes now, meeting the beer circles that have stained the wood table instead of Peter's dazzling eyes. His tail wraps around one of his ankles. “The kind that is best done privately.” 

Peter leans forwards, one hand on the rickety table between them, the other against Kurt's cheek as he gently forces Kurt to meet his eyes again. The glitter in his makeup catches the dim light, scattering stars across high cheekbones. Kurt’s stomach flips over, absolutely helpless as Peter steals a kiss. He tastes like stolen wine, and the promise of darker things to come

“Let’s get outta here,” Peter says. 

They make love in a hotel room that charges by the hour. Kurt pays for it, and leaves every other bill he has in his wallet on the pillow next to Peter’s head when he leaves for Mass in the morning. 

It used to be that Kurt would wake alone, Peter long gone, the mattress cold. (The money in his wallet all gone, but Peter had obviously needed it more than Kurt did.) These days, Kurt has the pleasure of pressing a delicate kiss to the apple of Peter’s cheek; to brush stray silver hair out of his eyes.  

He has spent a night kissing and pressing teeth to every mark other men have left on Peter’s body. His pale skin littered with the bruises of greedy thumbprints, scrapes from careless patches of stubble, red lines left by angry fingernails. Had treated them with a tenderness that had made Peter sigh into the sheets. 

Lovers things. More than what they are. More than what Kurt should want. 

In truth, Kurt was long overdue to take his vows. Most men who had been in Seminary for as long as Kurt had already had a church and a congregation to look after. Perhaps a year ago that would have been Kurt. Perhaps a year ago Kurt would have taken his vows, accepted his vestments, and taken his place to read at the head of the church. He would have been happy. 

A year ago, Kurt had not known the distinct shame of standing for morning prayer with a burn in his thighs from what he had spent all night doing. A year ago, Kurt had not known Peter. 

Lust had not been a sin that Kurt had known a year ago. It had been the idea of some of Kurt’s fellows in the seminary; men who had already experienced the world before settling down and deciding to dedicate their lives to the church. One of them had thought it a terrible shame that Kurt had never known the joys of the sins of the flesh. 

Peter had been their second try.

Their first had been a lovely woman—and there had been the downfall of course—Kurt had talked to her about poetry for an hour in an anonymous room paid for by a smirking classmate. Eventually she had indicated that a nap would be welcome if Kurt did not plan on taking his clothes off, and Kurt had gone downstairs to face the music. There had been a lot of laughter, a hearty slapping on Kurt’s back for not telling them Certain Facts. Kurt had assumed that would have been the end of it. 

A week later he had been pushed into a seedy bar in a part of town that none of them had any business frequenting to find an angel sitting at the bar. Silver hair that brushed a square jaw, bright blue eyes lined in dark makeup. There had practically been a halo behind his head thanks to the play of light against his hair. 

Kurt had made a fool of himself, stammering and tripping over his words, feeling like a fool. 

Peter had blinked, considering him, and looked over his head, “You know, if you want we can just chill and watch TV in a hotel somewhere. Promise I’ll make you look properly debauched with a little tweaking of that shirt and a few lipstick smears so your friends don’t do this to you again.” 

Kurt had blushed, tail against his ankle hard enough to bruise, no idea what to say, how to even react to such a statement. “Mein Gott,” He’d muttered under his breath.

Peter had answered, in German, leaning forward to practically whisper it in Kurt’s ear, “Or we can go somewhere private and I can teach you all about what boys who aren’t busy studying scripture do on an evening.” 

Kurt had thought, rather hysterically, that God truly was testing him that day. 

He had gone with Peter. 

To his shame, Kurt had continued to go to Peter.

The rustling of the rest of the congregation standing jerks Kurt out of his reverie. He rises half a beat behind everyone else, tail curling around his ankles as the little girl next to him muffles a laugh behind her hand. Kurt offers her a small smile,  _ yes, what a silly adult I am,  _ Before he faces forwards, and does his best to give the sermon his full attention. It is more difficult than it should be. Every time Kurt shifts, his body reminds him of other things he could think of. The red of Peter's lips, the splay of his hand against the bedsheets, what it had felt like to finally… The guilt settles as a ball of lead in his stomach. 

This is why Kurt cannot take his vows. 

Later, he will stammer through a confession to the anonymous priest on the other side of the mesh screen of the confessional. He will omit most of the details, and will be told that all men struggle with these urges. He will be told to reflect, to consider his place as one of God’s children. He will be absolved of his sins. 

Kurt will nod, and say thank you. 

He will not say that it is not the lust that draws him back to sin. It is something far worse, something that Kurt has no doctrines, no prayers to use as shields. The church has always warned him about the dangers of lust. 

There had never been any talk of the danger of falling in love. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I am not Catholic. If I got anything grievously wrong please tell me. All my knowledge is from the internet and educated guesswork. 
> 
> If you want to check out my bingo card and send me suggestions of what to write for some of the squares, come see my [dreamwidth!](https://coinmanatee.dreamwidth.org/1614.html)


End file.
